Books: On Chesil Beach

By LEV GROSSMANFriday, May 18, 2007

Release Date: June 5Author: Ian McEwanPublisher: Jonathan Cape

McEwan sprang into late-career international superstardom with Atonement in 2001, and you wonder why it took so long: his cruel, elegantly twisty tales, told in precise, expressive prose, demonstrate the deep damage time wreaks on human love in ways no other writers can. On Chesil Beach should further his hot streak: it's a brief (208 pages) but intensely tender portrait of a young, bookish newlywed couple whose anxieties about their impending physical intimacy threaten to overwhelm them.